


more than enough l*ve to go around

by Luthor



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: AU, F/F, No cheating, Open Relationships, Polyamory, just off-season love and fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 05:18:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14465868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthor/pseuds/Luthor
Summary: Amélie and Gérard Lacroix host their annual Halloween Party at Châteaux Guillard, and there's more than just atreatin store for Angela..."Angela can understand, given the chance, why a creature arguably monstrous or divine would want to take a bite out of Amélie. "





	more than enough l*ve to go around

Angela recognises her mistake as soon as she steps past the threshold of Châteaux Guillard.

She clings especially tighter to the cloak hiding every inch of her costume, bar the pointed boots and the thigh-highs that could be mistaken for tights, with the creamy expanse of her upper legs still concealed. Ahead of her, in tittering French, a gaggle of masked women in ballgowns congratulate each other on their shared idea. As Angela steps further into the châteaux, she discovers that they aren’t the only ones who misread the Lacroixs’ invitation to a _Halloween Party_ as an invite to a 19 th Century soiree.

With mounting dread, she wonders if this is what Amélie and Gérard were expecting of her; something dignified, heavy, and uncomfortable. Her own hand-sewn costume makes her shiver even beneath the cloak; it feels like a slip of clothing in comparison to the dress of those around her. In horror, she imagines every person who sees her tonight will assume that she’s slipped a _Sexy Witch_ costume off a rack the day before the event.

She shivers privately, and no less due to the creeping wind finding a way beneath the ends of her cloak.

Just as she’s resigned to hiding her three weeks’ worth of effort behind a cloak she’d picked up on sale over three years ago, she spots Amélie and Gérard at the top of a set of steps, greeting their guests. More importantly, she spots the moment when their eyes single her out from the dissipating crowd of attenders, rendering a quick escape impossible.

“Bonsoir,” she manages upon approaching the pair, before Amélie is grasping her shoulders and drawing her in to expensive perfume and the gentle brush of cheeks against hers.

“ _Angela_.”

Amélie says her name with the warmth and familiarity of a person genuinely happy to see her, and it eases the tension in her chest, for just a moment. Once Amélie releases her, Angela takes in their costumes. At least, she thinks, Amélie is not another ballgown. She’s wearing a tailored suit that is slightly more cinched to her shape than Gérard’s, and a pair of heeled boots that differentiate her own costume from her husband’s.

Otherwise, the pair are almost identical.

Matching bite marks and a drizzle of fake blood complete the outfits, and Angela smiles with the relief of having finally found herself among company who understand the concept of Halloween.

(She’s allowed to have one guilt-free night of the year to have _fun_ and be _silly_ and _not think about work_ in a sexy witch costume, damnit.)

“Ah,” she hums, taking in the outfits. “I knew the rumours were true.”

“Be careful, Angela,” Gérard intones ominously as he too swoops in to kiss her cheeks, “you are looking positively _ravishing_ tonight.”

Whether it’s the accent, the compliment, or the fact that Amélie is standing no less than a few feet away with a look on her face that says she absolutely agrees, but Angela colours instantly. She sputters without grace through what might be a _thank you_ , while Gérard brandishes fake fangs and a knowing laugh, and clings all the tighter to her cloak.

“You can manage without me for a moment?” Amélie asks Gérard without really asking him; she takes Angela’s arm in her own and is already pulling her aside while Gérard waves the two of them off to accost new arrivals. Privately, Angela takes a steadying breath. “Thank god you’re here,” Amélie says into her ear.

“Tiring of greeting guests already?”

Amélie’s pained look almost has her laughing.

“Maybe I’m just glad to see you,” Amélie tells her as they enter a quieter hallway, and then the cloakroom. “I wasn’t sure that you would be coming.” She looks at Angela strangely, for just long enough to make Angela second-guess her meaning, before waving the pause away with a smile and a gesture towards Angela’s cloak.

Angela… hesitates.

“Not when I spent so long on my costume,” she breathes, almost too quietly for Amélie to hear, and feels herself instantly colour again. It was a mistake, she is suddenly convinced, to come to a new friend’s party dressed as—dressed in— wearing what she _is_. Or rather, what she _isn’t_. How had she thought her outfit choice was appropriate for—?

“Angela,” Amélie pleads, all glinting eyes, and lips, and fangs. “You can’t say that and then not show me.”

 _I could_ , Angela thinks, even if she knows that she won’t.

“I may have missed some fine print on your invitation,” she says, instead, and when Amélie looks at her quizzically, she opens her cloak. Any attempt at modesty is quickly cast aside as Amélie tears the cloak wider open, a gasp leaving her lips as delighted as it is surprised. Angela dies a little on the spot.

“ _Angela_ , you look—” Amélie struggles, chokes, and is Angela imagining the hint of pink beneath her pale make up? Probably. Amélie clears her throat and laughs again, a deeper, raspier laugh that does terrible things to Angela’s knees. “You have surprised me,” Amélie tells her, as though it’s a great achievement. “I never would have put you in something like this.”

“Well,” Angela clears her throat, tries not to smile too widely, like a cat arching for another well-placed scratch at her rump, “it seems I’m one of your only guests who understood this was a _Halloween_ party. The costumes are supposed to be _scary_.”

“Or slutty,” Amélie corrects, feigning equal outrage, although her smile tells Angela that some small part of it, at least, is genuine. “If they wore any shorter dresses, they’d—what’s that phrase? Reveal the sticks up their asses.”

“Rich people—having _fun_?” Angela gasps, and Amélie laughs again.

“Perhaps, after tonight, I will have challenged your viewpoint?”

“Truly, Amélie, I am hoping so…”

“Well, if you’re done teasing me,” Amélie says, folding her arms, and tips her head pointedly down to Angela’s cloak. “We cannot hide away in here forever, loathed as I am to admit it.” She hesitates a moment, lips pressing together in thought, and then offers, “If you are truly uncomfortable, I can fetch you something a little warmer to wear over the top, but with your _figure_ … ah,” and she turns that not-pink shade, as she had before, “I mean, to use my husband’s words, you really do look ravishing.

“Besides,” she adds, with that signature Lacroix smile (as though Amélie were inviting her into an inside joke, but never revealing the punchline; it makes Angela’s head spin), “it would be a damn shame to keep yourself hidden. What with all the effort that you put into your costume, no?”

“Right, the _costume_ ,” Angela smirks, but it is good natured. “I swear, you would try to talk me into anything.”

“Only try?” Amélie asks, and, well. Angela supposes not. She releases little tension with a sigh, but does begin to shrug out of her cloak. Amélie takes it from her like it’s no small victory. “There, that wasn’t so hard,” she says, giving Angela an appreciative once-over now that she can actually see her. “How long did this take you to make?”

“Oh, a little while,” Angela says, dismissive. “A week, or so, really.”

Three painstaking weeks, is the truth. She began preparations the same day that she received the Lacroix’s invitation, but she tucks that morsel of information away for now. Amélie is not short of fuel to make her blush.

“Now that I see it, it’s much more detailed than I thought,” Amélie mutters, mainly to herself, as she fingers the trim of the dress. “Very impressive.” She seems to catch herself, or else realises that she’s inadvertently touching Angela’s _bare thigh_ with the delicate backs of her knuckles, and turning Angela an impressive shade of white-and-pink in the process. She draws her hand back with a smile. “Come on, then, let me show you off.”

She offers her well-tailored arm, and Angela hesitates.

“Won’t Gérard miss you?”

“Oh,” Amélie grins, and Angela gets the feeling that she’s missing a point, “Gérard can handle himself just fine on his own while we girls have our fun. Now—?”

“Very well. Far be it from me to leave you wanting at your own party.”

“Mm,” Amélie hums to conceal a laugh. “If only all my guests had your manners.”

 

Confidence returns to Angela once there’s a champagne flute in hand.

Amélie’s presence, warm and purposefully close by her side, may also have something to do with it.

“…of course, after the affair with the gardener was broadcast, Monsieur Carmouche took an extended vacation,” Amélie is saying, just loud enough for Angela to hear, stopping only to smile and nod to the man in question. Angela tears her attention away from the miniscule whisper of breath against her ear just long enough to appear polite. “This is the first I’ve seen of him since before the _incident_. It’s really quite a scandal that he’s here.”

Angela looks from the greying Monsieur Carmouche, to Amélie’s delighted expression.

“You invited him?” she asks, and Amélie nods her assent.

“And,” she adds, gesturing to a broad-shouldered twenty-something year old by Carmouche’s side, “the gardener.”

Angela turns her face away to hide her smile. “You will have your fun.”

“Yes,” Amélie agrees with a glint. “I will.”

Like this, she introduces Angela to her guest list.

(Angela secretly loves every second of it.)

 

That the rest of the night passes much the same would certainly be of Angela’s preference, but try as she might to monopolise Amélie’s attention (if only to stave off creeping social anxiety), the hostess bows to the calls of her guests. Not that Angela is bitter. The châteaux could hold half the village and, looking at the crowds, probably does. She can’t and doesn’t expect special treatment.

The night finds Angela in one of the lesser crowded corners, a third champagne flute in hand, trying to keep up with a conversation. Her French has never been perfect, and now more than ever does she realise how out of practice she is; when asked for her opinion on the matter, she stutters and fumbles and defers to what has already been said.

It’s unlike her, and she knows it, and she hates it.

Were that the only problem, Angela would drink too much and suck it up. She’s a big girl, and she has come out the other side of worse parties without embarrassing herself too much, but tonight— she feels eyes on her far too keenly. On her outfit, more accurately, and what little of it there is in comparison to almost every other partygoer.

Angela is not a prude, and yet.

A waving hand draws her attention, and Angela realises with minor embarrassment that she’s allowed the conversation to flow right past her. She blinks back into the moment and smiles, clutches her champagne flute a fraction tighter. The waving hand is wrapped in lace, elbow-length gloves, and attached to a woman whose name Angela has already forgotten.

She asks Angela a question in French, and it takes her too long to comprehend.

“Oh,” she returns, “non c’est… ah. My costume is _homemade_ , actually.”

She can _feel_ the eyebrow raise, perfectly hidden by a mask.

“No, dear,” the woman continues in accented English, “I can see that much. I was asking how long you spent on it?”

Surrounding conversation pauses, allowing Angela perfect silence to deliver her answer. She feels it like heat before a thunderstorm, warm, warm against her face. _They’re a pack of wolves_ , she thinks, but Angela has always thought this- has always struggled and mis-judged and disdained. _It is warranted, now._

“Not too long,” she lies. “Just between work, when I had the spare time. I have a very busy job.”

“Ah,” the woman nods, but it is already lacking interest. “Perhaps if they would have given us a little longer to prepare—!”

Angela’s smile is tight-lipped.

Like a sigh of relief, conversation begins around them again, slipping back into dulcet curls of French. Angela tunes it out. She is not a particularly social creature, she can’t say that she even enjoys gatherings like this— not the size of them, not the excessive gossiping, certainly not the people. She likes her own company, her comfort zone. Truly, she is an aged woman before her time, but she is perfectly content with that.

She downs the remainder of her drink with one swallow and brandishes the glass like a white flag.

“Excuse me,” she says in perfect French, “but I’m all out.”

 

She retreats.

It’s a bad habit, at social functions like this, but the larger they are the easier it becomes, and Châteaux Guillard is not small.

It is too cold for the gardens this side of autumn, but enough effort has been put into prettifying them to draw Angela’s attention. She’s sure the grass would be luscious were it light enough for her to see, and she contemplates slipping out of her heels to feel it, damp, against her feet.

She refrains.

With a shiver, she walks the length of a flagged patio to where a trellis leads further out into sculpted flowerbeds. The hanging wisteria is mainly spidery veins of branches without bloom, but it is thick enough to block out some of the wind. Angela leans against the iron frame of it, letting it tangle in her costume or her hair, she pays it no mind. The cold is sobering; she wishes momentarily for another champagne flute, and considers that she’s perhaps already had enough.

Footsteps from behind – high-heeled and purposeful – draw Angela’s attention.

She is unsurprised to see Amélie walking towards her, no less with two champagne flutes in hand.

“You’re a miracle,” Angela tells her, garnering a bemused response.

She has certainly had enough already. She takes the glass when offered, anyway.

“I thought you may be out here,” Amélie tells her. The garden is faintly lit from several light sources, none bright enough to make the pair fully visible from inside the châteaux. “Either out here, or upstairs in some restricted room, rooting for personal items through the cupboards and drawers. Hiding yourself away.”

“That’s a very active imagination.”

Amélie nods her head once with a smile.

“Perhaps you just like the thought of me digging through your drawers?” Angela teases, and instantly regrets it. Amélie’s widening eyes only serve to make her blush; she takes a needed sip from her glass and turns her attention out to the darker corners of the garden. “That may have come out wrong.”

It is a lame apology.

“No,” Amélie laughs, “I think you know just what you meant to say.”

“Then I should not have said it.”

“Why is that?”

Angela turns to her, turns to question what that means, perhaps, or to stammer and stumble through a response that she suddenly doesn’t feel qualified to give. Instead, Amélie reaches up to untangle a twist of wisteria from her hair, and all hope of comprehensible communication is lost.

“You should be inside,” Angela whispers, seconds into the display, “with your guests.”

“Stand still,” Amélie tells her, but she hasn’t moved an inch.

She is taking her one-handed time to ease the branch free, tucking curls of blonde hair this way and that so as to prevent ruining Angela’s up-do. Angela thinks she could just start walking forward and the branch, thin and flexible as it is, would tear free without damage, but the careful touches of Amélie’s cold fingertips stay her. It is unnecessary, or perhaps _it is_ necessary, but either way it is keeping Angela warm.

She’s always appreciated Amélie’s height, her posture, the grace with which she holds herself. This close to her, Angela is eye-level with her clavicle. The fake blood trickle never quite made it down to the collarbone, having prematurely dried just before a freckle above Amélie’s shoulder, but its short-lived path is hypnotising.

Angela can understand, given the chance, why a creature arguably monstrous or divine would want to take a bite out of Amélie.

“There we are,” Amélie interrupts her thoughts, and the autumnal chill returns, “you are free.”

 _Regrettable_ …

Those cool fingers slip from her hair, brushing Angela’s jawline in a way that could be accidental, were the look on Amélie’s face not so— _purposeful_. It chokes Angela to silence. Amélie watches her expression like she might a plate of food that’s just been set out before her, looks at her like she might just _eat her up_. Angela can’t say she’d be sorry if it happened.

Finally, her hand continues its journey; it lands on Angela’s shoulder and squeezes as though that was ever the intended destination.

“Angela, there is something I’ve been meaning to talk with you about. Something rather personal.”

Angela feels her heart _throb-throb_ inside her chest, more so when that same hand retreats.

In any context, those words would make her anxious. In this context, specifically, she thinks she might just stop breathing.

“Don’t look so afraid, _chérie_ , it’s nothing terrible.”

Despite her words, Amélie herself looks uncharacteristically nervous. She hesitates to continue, wets her lips, presses her champagne glass between both hands like she might just lose her grip on it. Angela is too much of a coward to urge her on; she waits in stifling silence for Amélie to continue.

“You see, Gérard and I…”

She stops, and for one awful moment, Angela thinks she knows where this is going. She wants to cry. One hand is already prematurely raising to her chest, shock and upset coming quick and easy, because these people are her _friends_. New friends, yes, but _fast_ friends, close friends, friends that deserve to be happy together. Worse still, they had gone to such trouble to _hide_ that there were any troubles. Angela may struggle to forgive that, later, but for now it just _hurts_.

“Amélie—”

“As you may already have heard, our relationship,” a breath, and Angela braces herself for the hit, “is… _open_.”

A pause.

Of all the things Angela had been prepared to hear—

“ _What?_ ”

Angela blinks back the tears that had already sprung to the corners of both eyes. She looks visibly, physically stunned, to Amélie’s surprise.

“What were you expecting me to say?” Amélie asks, and then seems to realise not a moment later. She smiles with utter incredulity at the idea. “Gérard is the love of my life, Angela, he always will be, and I am his. There is nothing that could change that.” She shakes her head, stupefied, giddy, certain. “But that is not to say that we can’t… _appreciate_ other people, if you catch my meaning?”

Angela does.

“You’re surprised,” Amélie notes.

“Yes, a little. A lot, actually.”

“Upset?”

Angela hums, uncomprehending for a moment. “Upset? No. No, I was… I expected to hear something else, that—well, this is better, much better, just. I was not expecting it.” She looks down at the champagne glass in her hand as though she’d forgotten that it was there at all. “You wanted me to know this?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

She looks to Amélie and truly means it, truly wants to _know_ — she already does.

“Oh.”

There is a careful silence. Break it to soon, Amélie thinks, and she may ruin something much more precious than a possible romance.

She allows Angela the time that she needs to recover – to consider. Privately, she crosses all of her mental fingers and toes and hopes, at the very least, that they will be able to backtrack to something safe and good and platonic. She is not bringing this conversation up lightly. She understands, all too well, the complications that this could cause the two of them. She understands.

But then she looks at Angela and her heart pounds anyway, beats in a rhythm of _what-if, what-if_ —

It is worth it. She has already decided, it is worth it.

“You and Gérard have talked about this?” Angela asks once she has found her voice again.

Amélie nods her assent. “Extensively.”

It could be no other way, not with them.

This revelation, more than any, makes Angela’s head spin. She feels fourteen years old again and learning for the first time that her crush knows who she is, that her crush talks about her when she’s not in the room. She takes a steadying breath and clings to the champagne flute even if she knows she’ll drink no more tonight.

“And…?”

Amélie’s smile is not the sharp-edged smirk that Angela is familiar with – enjoys. It is softer, gentler; it takes Angela by the hand and squeezes _you’ve got nothing to worry about_ , and god but Angela wants to believe it.

“You know he adores you, Angela, and he wants me to be happy. Always.”

That gives Angela pause – just long enough for Amélie to notice, and to worry.

“When you say ‘open’,” Angela begins, picking her words with obvious care, “you mean that you have other relationships, outside of your own relationship? Or that you—share?”

Amélie presses the humour out of her lips, catches her bottom one between her teeth like it will help. “Both. It depends.”

“On?”

“Many different factors,” Amélie sighs.

“And, with me? If I—if we were to—?”

“No.” She is resolute, now, meeting Angela’s gaze without uncertainty or hesitation. It steadies them both, offers something of a flat surface after so much uneven ground. “No, Gérard would not be involved. We’ve discussed this, also. If anything was to come of this, Angela, it would be just the two of us involved.”

“I see.”

She does, really, and she doesn’t.

Angela’s mind feels numb. She knows she should be thinking about this, and yet there’s a cork in the bottleneck of every single thought. If she had the mental stretch, she’d be making a rough-draft pros and cons list in her head, but all rationality fails her in the face of this _actually happening_.

Oh, she likes Amélie.

There’s little about her that she doesn’t like, in truth, but Angela has already locked herself in the friendzone and she is happy there. She is genuinely okay with her little crush being nothing more than that – distant, ignored, unrequited. It will take her longer than this conversation to re-trace her steps to when she first laid eyes on Amélie, to when she first let herself _hope_ that there might be a chance…

“So,” Amélie says, and Angela notices for the first time that it’s cold enough for their breath to fog in the air, if only barely. “I am giving you the ball, if you like. Putting it in your court. It is your decision if this goes anywhere or nowhere, or if you want to pretend this conversation never happened.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to do that,” Angela says, and Amélie doesn’t know whether or not her fear at hearing those few words is warranted. Angela takes a deep breath and shivers on the exhale. “How many relationships like this have you ever had—you and Gérard, I mean?”

Amélie is quiet while she thinks, and Angela allows it.

“Not many, like this. We have invited people into our relationship before. Many times only for sex, for intimacy, but sometimes it’s more.”

“And what would we have,” Angela continues, “if this happened? Would it be a relationship, or just sex— _intimacy_?”

Amélie struggles with her answer. “It would—well, I suppose it would be whatever you wanted it to be,” she says, but there is an expression on her face that says _that isn’t enough_. She takes a moment to find her words, she needs to say this properly, Angela understands that. “I’d like to take this slow, as with any new relationship, but that is what I want, Angela. A relationship. As public or private as you’re comfortable with. Open or closed. We will have time to discuss this properly.”

She worries her lip, white teeth on painted rouge.

“You are interested,” she says, and she is not asking. “If you weren’t you would have told me by now.”

Still, her gaze is searching.

“Yes,” Angela says, without thought. It’s not necessary. It’s not even a question. “Of course I am.”

Amélie’s smile is small and smug and giddy. Angela can’t help but quietly scoff at it, roll her eyes. As if it had ever been in question, her finding Amélie attractive. As if it would ever be in question, period. Acting on that attraction is very different, however, and Angela grasps onto _take it slow_ like a rubber life preserver.

“Don’t worry,” Amélie whispers, stepping closer. “Of _course_ I am, also. Very, very much so.”

And then she kisses her, she kisses her and makes Angela forget how cold she is.

Hard iron trellis against her back is not uncomfortable, but it’s not comfortable, either. She would withstand it (she would withstand _much more_ ), but Amélie draws back with a contemplative expression. She takes a backwards step and the cold rushes in, until it disappears again with Amélie’s tailored jacket swung around Angela’s shoulders. Angela sucks the warmth in as she does the heavy scent of expensive perfume.

“Let’s go back inside,” Amélie tells her, but sets her forearms both on Angela’s shoulders. She holds Angela’s face between her hands, then uses the tips of her thumbs to gently correct the smeared lipstick at the corners of Angela’s mouth. Red is bolder than her usual choice, though nobody could deny that it suits her. “You’ll freeze to death if we stay out here any longer.”

“I wouldn’t.”

Angela smiles, but when she catches Amélie’s gaze there’s something tender there, something delicate, choking. She is not certain about this, not yet, but looking at Amélie her heart pounds to the rhythm of _what-if, what-if_. They’ll talk about it. Later, they’ll discuss this, but for now… this is enough.

“Not with you doing such a good job at keeping me warm.”


End file.
